An editor of The New Republic told an Institute of Politics study group last night that Congress's role in foreign policy is mainly a fact-finding and educational one.

Walter Pincus said he disagrees with the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, J. William Fulbright (D-Ark.), that the Congress can play a "major foreign policy role."

Pincus, once special consultant to the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Investigation, said that foreign policy is still essentially the "province of the executive."

However, he emphasized the important part a committee like the one on investigations can play in "developing information, citing the committee's instrumental role in revealing the presence of U.S. nuclear weapons abroad.

Pincus said the fight over American nuclear weapons abroad, which was initiated by the investigations subcommittee, resulted in the first reduction of U.S. nuclear power abroad in 20 years.

Pincus also discussed the enormous influence the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee has on "its direction and tone," and said had Sen. John D. Sparkman (D-Ala) or Sen. George Aiken (R-Vt) chaired the committee during the Vietnam years, it would never have "taken on the administration" the way it did under Fulbright's leadership.